


the last time the moon shone this bright was centuries ago

by jessequicksters



Category: The Flash (TV 2014), The Flash - All Media Types
Genre: College, Dom!Iris, Dom/sub Undertones, F/M, First Time, Future!Iris, Iris being the badass journalist she is, Meet-Cute, Oral Sex, Virgin!Eobard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-30
Updated: 2020-09-30
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:20:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26735002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jessequicksters/pseuds/jessequicksters
Summary: Eobard Thawne is a Particle Physics major in Central Cityplex University in 2997. He meets Iris, who's sharp and funny and impossibly beautiful - and the only person ever to invite him to a boat party.Much later, when the timeline changes and reality gets rewritten over and over again, Eobard meets Iris again in 2013. She's just as he remembered her; on their first night together, his first time.Timelines can't be put back together, but maybe moments in history can.
Relationships: Eobard Thawne | Harrison Wells/Iris West, Eobard Thawne/Iris West
Comments: 5
Kudos: 5





	the last time the moon shone this bright was centuries ago

**Author's Note:**

  * For [illea](https://archiveofourown.org/users/illea/gifts).



> loosely based on the future!iris concept from the comics, where her parents send her back in time as an infant to be adopted by the wests. anyway, this is a verse where she not only grew up in the future, but is from the same time period as eobard. yay

_Central Cityplex University. Sophomore year. 2997._

Eobard walks into the bullet elevators of the Humanities department, checking his timetable on his watch again. This has to be a mistake. He signed up for Algebraic Linguistics, not English Literature.

How much funding does this place get from the government, again? All for petty mistakes, all wasting his time and the time of the other students in this institution. But you know what, it’s fine. He stops himself before he ends up spiralling.

Mistakes are human. Mistakes are—

Someone bumps into him as the elevator door closes. A girl with a tight skirt and a loose floral blouse drops all of her books onto him. He’s ready to let it all out now, until she looks up and smiles at him.

It’s a nervous smile, also genuinely apologetic. (And beautiful.)

“I’m so sorry, I was in a rush to get to my English Literature lecture,” she says, jamming the elevator buttons repeatedly.

“You only need to press it once,” Eobard says, as the doors close.

She picks up all of her books from the floor and bounces back up. “Right. Sorry, my mind is just a little all over the place this morning. I’m actually helping my professor deliver the first lecture of the semester. It’s for extra credit. You know how it is for Journalism majors, it’s not so much the grades you get but the amount of footnotes you have in your CV.”

She laughs. Eobard doesn’t get the joke but smiles anyway. The bullet elevator shoots up, stopping by on floors 15, 21 and 25. People start leaving until it’s just the two of them.

The elevator stops on the 35th floor where the Administration office is. The girl looks at Eobard.

“You getting off here?”

He blinks, completely forgetting what he was meant to be doing.

“Um, no, actually. I’m going to that English Literature lecture, too.”

She beams. “Well, it’s nice to be able to sit next to a familiar face on your first day. All my friends are too hungover from the Welcome Week parties to attend this first lecture.”

-

“So you’re a Particle Physics major?” Iris asks after their lecture, as the two of them walk out of class.

Eobard nods, still unsure about what had just happened for the past fifty minutes. Iris did a presentation on twenty-first-century literature and the era of political poetry that sparked from various social movements. It was enlightening, to say the least. He’s never really taken an interest in history, but perhaps there is a lot to be said about studying humanity’s past, even as a scientist.

“Cool,” she says. “Don’t meet a lot of those around this building.”

“You presented very well, Iris. You seemed confident, with a good grasp of your subject matter. I don’t usually care much for the arts, but I was really engaged the entire time.”

“Well, thank you, Professor,” Iris jokes, playfully brushing a hand on his shoulder. Eobard feels himself tense a little bit, but it quickly dissipates as they quickly move into file to scan their IDs to cross the bridge between the two tower buildings.

He turns around to Iris. “You don’t need to come with me. To my lecture, I mean. You’ll find it really boring.”

“Yeah, I think you’re right,” she laughs, scrunching her nose. “It’ll go right over my head. It was a nice invitation though. How about. . . I’ll go two for two. We’re having a party this evening downtown by the pier, do you want to come?”

“Really?”

“Yeah! It’ll be fun. It’s technically a costume party, but honestly, we’ve all run out money from all the booze we spent last week. So just, turn up in whatever.”

Eobard gets to the front of the queue. Iris jumps out of the file as he scans his card before passing through the barrier. He turns around to look at her, waving at him from the other side.

“What are you wearing?” he asks.

“Guess you’ll have to come and find out,” she says with a wink as she turns on her heel, curly hair bouncing at the sweeping motion.

-

Eobard’s never been one for parties, really. His parents never quite let him socialize more than they deemed necessary, which only comprised of school-hours and regimented activities based on the extracurriculars he was signed up for. Eobard spent most of freshman year of college buried in a book, in the library, or sneaking into the High-Speed Particle Physics lectures which were only meant for postgraduate students.

It’s almost paying off, though, as he’s due in for a talk with one of his department heads later this month in order to accelerate his degree. He’s already top of his class in examination results; qualifying for national competitions for young scientists; and one of the most promising talents in Central Cityplex.

Not that any of that matters when you have a pretty girl dancing with you on a boat and you’re trying to do your best to figure out what to do when she starts putting her hands on your hips.

She’s wearing a gorgeous, light pink dress with little strawberries on it, with large hoop earrings that reflect the colourful lights every time she turns her head. It's a pop culture reference of some sort, probably from the vintage past, but at this point, he's too scared to ask.

“Are you okay, Eobard?” Iris slows down a little, as she looks at him with her impossibly honest eyes.

“Yes,” he says, breathlessly. “I’m just—not used to crowds, that’s all.”

Iris nods. “Okay. I get that.”

She takes his hand and cocks her head to the side as she brings them down to the lower decks. People are waving at her left and right, and Eobard slowly begins to relax as the music slows down compared to the madness that was the top deck. People seem to be leaning against dim corridors and talking—or making out—for the most part.

He could handle that. Iris makes them another drink as they find a quiet corner of some room.

“Tell me about your fancy scholarship, then.”

Eobard nearly spits out his drink. “My scholarship?”

“Yeah, come on, Thawne. You didn’t think I’d look you up the second I got home? What’s this thing about you being the national youth champion for maths or something? And! You didn’t mention that you’re a big Flash fan! I never thought I’d find someone else who was a fan around here.”

Eobard lights up. Could this girl get any more perfect? “You’re a fan of the Flash?”

“Uh, obviously. I know it’s not popular these days to be into superheroes—with this authoritarian shitshow of a government—but I gotta say, I would do anything to go back into the golden age of capes.”

“Me too!” Eobard says. “I mean, can you imagine what it would be like? To see him, running through the streets, saving people. When I was in sixth grade, I calculated how much energy it would take to go that fast. So, I tried to hack into my parents’ car to put it on autodrive and send it straight into a bolt of electricity from one of our solar generators outside the house.”

Iris laughs, covering her mouth. “You didn’t.”

“I did. You can probably guess what happened next.”

She winces, “Kaboom?”

“Pretty much,” he laughs, taking a sip of the strawberry fizz drink she mixed for the two of them. “Oh, this is—this is, um, strong?”

“Yeah,” she laughs. “Sorry, I’m not very good at mixing drinks. Or cooking. Or even making guac, as a matter of fact.”

“What? That’s all science, I’ll teach you. Recipes, algebraic ratios, they’re all the same. Food science, I actually took that class in freshman year. It’s actually really interesting when you get to the bottom of it. I mean, you do have to take into account the chemistry of the person having the meal: their allergies, taste buds, body temperature—”

“Oh?” Iris says, moving in closer towards him. “How does that all factor in?”

“Sensory perception, really,” Eobard continues, effortlessly. “Our bodies—our psychology, it’s all muscle memory in the end. The brain tells us what we like, what we dislike, what stimulates pleasure. It remembers these things awfully well, even when it starts veering away from the truth. It repeats the feeling, over and over again. These neurons all light up when we get hit by the types of food on our taste buds—I mean, I personally would do anything to get a taste of beef. And not the lab-grown stuff we use these days, but the real stuff, you know?”

Iris puts her cup down on the table and gently peels away his from his hands, setting it aside. She slides a hand on his chest, smoothing a finger on the little yellow lightning bolt sown into the pocket of his red polo t-shirt.

“You seem to know a lot about the way bodies work, Eobard,” she says, as the lights in the room suddenly dip to an intoxicating shade of violet, and the music shifts to steady electronic rhythm, tantalizingly slow with a bass that fades in and out.

He takes a deep breath, trying to steady himself by keeping his eyes on her.

“I—I know a lot about how they work,” he chokes out, “in theory.”

Iris is relatively small, but Eobard has a feeling that she could easily take him down if she wanted to. (And right now, he really, really hopes that she wants to.)

“I like you, Eobard,” she says, brushing her warm hands on his cheeks as she pulls his face in for a kiss.

Eobard hasn’t kissed anyone before, so this is—this is good. More than good. Iris is sweet and warm on his lips, and her tongue, _god_. He puts his hands firmly on her hips and feels the way the fabric of her dress outline her shape.

His hands start to wander, and she easily lets him until she pushes him onto the sofa at the edge of the room, right next to the window. The wind is flowing through the wooden shutters and Eobard can see the glow of the electric-white moon tonight. Its light reflects on the waters of the harbour, with an array of boats, all thumping with music and people jumping up and down.

“Lean back,” Iris instructs him, and he does as he’s told. “Now, take off your clothes.”

He nods and proceeds as she watches him from the other end of the sofa, slowly sliding down the short sleeves of her dress. She takes off her bra and drops it on the ground, her breasts comfortably falling over her pink dress, bunched up around her torso like a high waisted skirt.

She lifts up her skirt and Eobard notices the lack of underwear beneath. She smiles at the same time he does as they both laugh. It should be impossible, for someone as warm and good as she is, to illicit such knife-edge feelings inside of him.

Eobard’s smart. He knows that a girl like this comes by once a century, if you’re lucky.

“Will you come over?” Iris says, sugar-sweet, as she spreads her legs and makes herself comfortable on the sofa.

Eobard moves in between her legs, parting her lips open gently with his fingers. He’s doing his best to focus on her, because if he loses himself now, this will all be over far too soon. So, he does what he does best and does the math.

He picks up on her subtle reactions, when he’s sliding two fingers inside of her; the twitch in her left thigh when his tongue meets her clit; the way she grabs his hair when he rolls his tongue over it in steady motions, fingers pressed inside of her.

“Could you—” she says, letting out a small whimper, “a little harder? On your fingers?”

“Tell me how much?” he asks. She nods in response.

He tries a little experiment with her, then, increasing the pressure a little bit every time he strokes in and out. She’s trying to steady her breathing, and Eobard isn’t sure what that means, until it gets to a point where her abdomen tenses up and she taps his head gently.

“Stay there,” she moans in a tiny voice, before collecting herself again. “Oh, that’s good. You’re doing really good, Eobard.”

He lets out a slightly helpless groan as he feels himself twitch. Praise. The one thing that gets to him and somehow, she knows it. She eventually reaches her orgasm, and Eobard’s lips are numb as she slides her tongue back into his mouth, wet with the sour taste of strawberries and the rest of her.

“You sure you haven’t done this before?” she asks, gently teasing.

“I’m sure I would remember,” he smiles, tipping his head back, as the shine of the moonlight cuts through the blinds and lands on her bare body, impossibly perfect.

He could never forget the rows of shadows and light on her body that night; alive like a painting straight out of his wildest dreams; the awakening consciousness of the human brain; sparked alive like the first flash of lightning witnessed by man.

-

_Central City University. The penultimate year. 2013._

Harrison Wells does not keep the past in lockets or in chests on the ocean floor next to empty docks. He is a man of the future. He is a man of not one, not two, but infinite timelines.

The past has been erased, changed, twisted and painted over countless times. There is no use remembering a past that no longer exists.

(Barry Allen, you will always keep, because he will fuel your rage and your speed for centuries.)

Harrison finishes presenting a guest lecture at Central City University. Normally now, he’d be swarmed with students and other professors alike, but this was an evening lecture on a Friday night, during one of the university’s biggest football games of the season. Attendance, needless to say, was sparse. But it doesn’t mean that it was an entire waste of time.

A woman bumps into him on his way out.

He freezes.

“Dr. Harrison Wells,” she says, sharp eyes immediately pulling him in as if by some great, primordial force.

He can’t say her name out loud, not just yet.

He’s taken careful steps to avoid her as best he can in this timeline. The task proved excruciatingly difficult, considering her proximity to the true bane of his existence. But it’s fine. He’s prepared for this. They were going to cross paths eventually.

“Yes, that’s my name. May I help you with something, Miss. . .?”

“Iris West,” she says. Harrison smiles kindly in response, fiddling with his cufflinks as she shuffles through the files in her hands.

“Miss West, it’s a pleasure to meet you. What can I do for you tonight?”

“I have a paper I’m writing for my Master’s dissertation. I’m a Journalism graduate. I’ve interned at CCPN and I worked part-time at H.G Publishers a couple of years ago.”

“Ah, they published that rather scathing biography of me,” he says. “Were you on the editorial team?”

She tilts her head to the side, in exactly the same way he remembers her doing. “A little before my time, I’m afraid. Though from what I’ve heard, it has its high points, too.”

He chuckles dryly. “You have quite the impressive resume, Miss West. What would you like to know?”

“Your upcoming project: the particle accelerator. It’s due to launch next year and a lot of citizens of Central City are concerned about their safety. Have you taken the time to listen to their concerns at all?”

Harrison quirks his lips up into a small smile. “Something tells me you already know the answer to that.”

“I do,” she nods, without missing a beat. She pulls out her dictator and turns it on, but Harrison puts a hand over hers and presses pause on the device before they resume.

“So ask me—the question you really want to ask,” he says.

She raises her gaze up at him, still utterly unmoved by his attempts to intimidate her into dropping the question. She takes a step forward and closes the gap between them, and Harrison is suddenly hyper-aware of her breathing; her chest rising and falling, steadily, the way her tight pencil skirt wraps around her hips and her legs, the brown printed blouse perfectly fitted over her shoulders and arms.

He even finds himself forgetting his name for a moment—

She clears her throat and orders him, “Dr. Wells, please answer the question.”

He’s done for.

“Yes.”

“Yes? You’ve listened to the concerns of Central City’s citizens?”

“I have, yes,” he admits, though not without considerable restraint. He realizes that she’s also turned the dictator back on in the split second where he’s lost himself.

“And how do you plan to respond to them? I can tell you that CCPN isn’t painting a very pretty picture of you at the moment. Your biography is filled with accounts by other people, but there’s not so much as a quote from yourself.”

“You think I’m afraid to tell my own story.”

She raises her eyebrows.

“I assure you, Miss West, I’ve calculated the numbers. I have the best scientists working on the job. The greatest minds in the nation are all working together, with me, on this.”

“That doesn’t mean anything to the public. Science, it’s nothing without application—” she says.

“On that, I agree.”

“You’re a professor, aren’t you? So what you do is teach people, make them understand how science works in the real world. If this project is going to change a lot of lives, as you claim it will, you need to explain to them what’s going on behind those walls: what your process is, where you’re getting your funding from, how you’re working together with the mayor’s office—”

“This an entirely private enterprise, founded by me.”

“Should it be? Entirely private? You list down here,” she looks down at her notes, “that the particle accelerator will lead to advancements in technology and medicine. How much can public health really advance if you don’t collaborate with institutions run by the public?”

Harrison feels like he’s been hit by a freight train, or the equivalent of.

“What do you suggest then, Miss West?”

She takes a breath, as if she never expected to get this far in the first place. That makes the two of them.

“A public dissemination campaign, in conjunction with the mayor’s office and other community organizations, to really get the word out,” she finally answers.

He smiles, finally, without restraint for the first time tonight. “I see. So, this isn’t just an interview for me, this is also _your_ job interview,” he says, gesturing at her.

She pauses the dictator, realizing that he’s caught on.

“I’ve written out the entire plan for the campaign,” she says, handing him over the file.

He takes it—and out of morbid curiosity—speeds through it within a fraction of a second.

“This is very good,” he says.

“What? You haven’t even read it.”

“I trust you. You’re on, Iris.”

She spins the dictator in her hand, turning her head as she grins with excitement. He loves seeing her like this. She deserves the world.

He knows this isn’t part of the plan. But he will always want to give her everything, in any timeline, in any body.

Iris will always be his first.

He might not be hers, but this one memory is enough for him. One version of an erased past, where her parents never sent her back to the twenty-first century as an infant to escape the cruelties of the future. That will always be his best history.

Eobard Thawne was his best when he fell in love with Iris.

He feels her hand sliding up his chest, as she slips the dictator into his front pocket.

“I trust you, too,” she says, a finger hooking into his crisp white collar, exposing the soft, pliable skin, underneath. “Hey, how about you tell me. . . about all the things they left out of your biography?”

He sees her, in shades of shadow and moonlight again, later that night, when she takes control of him and his senses; and leaves him with marks that will now settle into history on this body, this name, this time.

**Author's Note:**

> i love the concept of future!iris so much. this ship is a prime breeding ground for an tragic epic love story (and i am in deep)


End file.
